CollegeHumor to Launch New Streaming Subscription Service

The $5.99 per month service will launch with original video, comics, and chat stories

CollegeHumor, the comedy-focused digital media company which has 15+ million followers across its social media platforms, announced on Tuesday the public beta launch of DROPOUT, its ad-free, mixed-media subscription service.

The ad-free service will cost $5.99 per month or $49 yearly. The monthly fee gives subscribers access to premium video and a mix of content including digital comics and chat stories which will play an integral role in the DROPOUT experience, according to CollegeHumor’s chief business officer Shane Rahmani.

“We’re focused on world-building sketch comedy rooted in the CollegeHumor universe, and the visual storytelling of comics and chat stories will bridge and expand upon the narratives between new episodes of DROPOUT’s original shows,” Rahmani said. “For example, between new episodes of Jake and Amir’s “Lonely and Horny,” [viewers] can read through Amir’s character Ruby Jade’s many, many failed attempts at text message flirting in one of “Lonely and Horny’s” chat stories. Or, [they] can follow along with Caldwell and Nathan in the digital comic ‘Cartoon Hell Presents,’ where the two try to pitch a new comic series based on their drawings from the DROPOUT original show, ‘Cartoon Hell.’”

It’s this mixed media offering that Rahmani says separates DROPOUT from the competition, like NBC’s now retired comedy-focused streaming service Seeso. The CBO also points to the company’s massive online following as signs of future success. He said that CollegeHumor is one of the top viewed digital comedy channel on YouTube with 13 million+ subscribers, and 6.5 billion total views to date.

“When you include Dorkly and Drawfee, our sister brands, from which much of DROPOUT content is drawn, we top 15 million subs on YouTube, 10 million followers on Facebook and 10-15 million monthly visits to our websites,” Rahmani said.

In order to convert this growing online userbase, DROPOUT will release short video clips from its original content across CollegeHumor’s social media channels. According to Rahmani,every episode from DROPOUT’s original shows was written with a segment intended to be released as a standalone on ad-supported platforms that will act as bait to attract viewers back to the new subscription platform.

Rahmani says that original content — across all forms of media — will be the backbone of DROPOUT. The service’s first-year content slate will include 11 shows, 20 different comic series, and 40 separate chat stories, which are stories that unfold via text messages.

During public beta, which is expected to run for three months, DROPOUT will be available for $3.99 per month. The service will then offer a tiered pricing model, starting at $3.99 per month with an annual subscription, $4.99 per month with a six-month subscription, and $5.99 for a month-by-month subscription.

Bill Cosby, once one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars, has dramatically fallen from grace since facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and misconduct — leading to a criminal conviction in 2018 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. Here’s a look back at the scandal.

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In 2014, Kristina Ruehli accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting her when she was 22 years old.

Cosby delivers his famous “Pound Cake” speech at NAACP Awards, criticizing too-permissive parenting by African-Americans. A judge later cited the moralizing speech when unsealing Cosby’s deposition in 2015.

Phylicia Rashad, the actress who played Cosby’s wife for eight seasons on “The Cosby Show,” defends her former TV husband: “What you’re seeing is the destruction of a legacy. And I think it’s orchestrated.”

After months of defending her friend against his accusers on “The View,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg reverses course, saying, “All of the information that’s out there kind of points to guilt.” Her reversal follows other former Cosby backers like singer Jill Scott.

A week after Cosby filed a countersuit for defamation against seven of his accusers, the comedian sued model Beverly Johnson for defamation. A complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court accuses Johnson of trying to push herself back into the limelight with a false allegation that he drugged her and attempted to have sex with her.

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Dec. 30, 2015

Cosby was arraigned on felony charges of criminal sexual assault stemming from a purported incident more than a decade earlier in Pennsylvania involving a former Temple University employee. A previous district attorney declined to charge the star in 2005.

The judge rules only one of the 13 other accusers prosecutors had planned to call to the stand may testify at the criminal trial. The unnamed woman was previously employed by Cosby’s former agent at WME.

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May 16, 2017

Cosby says in an interview with SiriusXM radio host Michael Smerconish that he likely will not testify at the trial.

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May 19, 2017

Montgomery County Judges Thomas DeRicci and Steven O’Neill bar all electronic communications from the courthouse, meaning the trial will not be televised and journalists will be barred from live-tweeting.

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May 24, 2017

A jury is selected for Cosby’s trial. Following Cosby’s assertion that race could be a factor in the decision, the jury is made up of four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black man.

After 5 days and 52 hours of deliberations, the 12-person jury is unable to reach a unanimous verdict and a mistrial is declared. Montgomery County D.A. Kevin Steele said he intends to retry Cosby at a later date.

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June 22, 2017

Following the mistrial, representatives for Cosby said the comedian had planned a tour for a series of educational “town halls” about sexual assault. “People need to be educated,” said Cosby spokesperson Ebonee Benson. “A brush against the shoulder, anything at this point, can be considered sexual assault.” The plans were quickly met with pushback.

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June 26, 2017

A juror from the Cosby mistrial said on “Good Morning America” that Cosby’s celebrity and a lack of “substantial evidence” led to the jurors being unable to reach an unanimous verdict over the 52 hours of deliberation. “I think if it was a regular Average Joe, it probably wouldn’t have taken that long,” juror Bobby Dugan said.

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June 27, 2017

Cosby pushed back about “false” news reports about his tour. “The current propaganda that I am going to conduct a sexual assault tour is false. Any further information about public plans will be given at the appropriate time,” Cosby said in a statement.

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June 27, 2017

A trial date of July 30, 2018, was set for Cosby’s California civil sexual assault case, in which he was accused of sexually assaulting Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1974 when she was 15 years old.

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Aug. 1, 2017

Bill Cosby’s defense attorney Brian McMonagle quits ahead of the comedian’s second sexual assault trial. No reason was given for McMonagle’s departure.

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Jan. 18, 2018

Prosecutors in the Cosby case make a request for 19 of the actor’s accusers to testify in court. Prosecutors originally wanted 13 accusers to testify in the original trial, but only one was allowed, with the defense arguing that it would prejudice the jury.

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Jan. 26, 2018

Lawyers for Cosby say that the prosecutors failed to disclose and later destroyed evidence related to the case of Temple University worker Andrea Constand, adding that the misconduct was serious enough to warrant a dismissal of the case.

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March 12, 2018

Cosby’s former TV daughter on “The Cosby Show,” Lisa Bonet, says in an interview that though she didn’t know about the dozens of sexual misconduct allegations, she “always” sensed some darkness surrounding the comedian. There was just energy,” Bonet says. “And that type of sinister, shadow energy cannot be concealed.”

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April 9, 2018

On the first day of Cosby’s scheduled retrial, a topless woman charges at Cosby as he enters the Norristown, Pennsylvania, courthouse. The woman was a protestor with “Woman’s Lives Matter,” and she came within a few feet of Cosby before she was intercepted by sheriff’s deputies.

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April 10, 2018

Cosby’s defense attorney Tom Mesereau painted Cosby accuser Andrea Constand as a “con artist,” saying she wasn’t attracted to him physically but for his fame and money. The defense added that Constand had changed her story multiple times.

April 12, 2018

Supermodel Janice Dickinson testified that Cosby raped her in Lake Tahoe in 1982. “I wanted to punch him in the face,” Dickinson told the court.

April 18, 2018

Marguerite Jackson, a former fellow employee of Temple University alongside Bill Cosby’s accuser Andrea Constand, was permitted to testify for the defense on Wednesday during the comedian’s retrial, after her testimony was blocked from the original 2017 trial. Jackson claimed she shared a hotel room with Constand, asking her at the time, “‘Did this really happen to you?’ and [Constand] said ‘no, no it didn’t. But I could say it happened, get that money. I could quit my job, go back to school.’”

April 19, 2018

Cosby’s defense team made their fifth motion for a mistrial, with Judge Steven T. O’Neill striking down the motion as having “simply no grounds for a mistrial” and being raised too late.

April 25, 2018

Two hours into deliberations, the jury’s first question was for a legal definition of consent following an entire day of closing arguments.

April 26, 2018

Cosby is found guilty by the jury in his retrial over accusations made by former Temple University employee Andrea Constand. The jury found him guilty on all three counts of aggravated indecent assault, stemming from former Temple University employee Constand’s accusation that the comedian molested her in 2004 at his home outside of Philadelphia.

September 25, 2018

Cosby is sentenced to three to 10 years in a Pennsylvania prison and declared a “sexually violent predator” whose name will appear on a sex-offender registry sent to neighbors, schools and victims.

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A chronology of controversies that have tarnished the legacy of a Hollywood icon

Bill Cosby, once one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars, has dramatically fallen from grace since facing multiple accusations of sexual assault and misconduct — leading to a criminal conviction in 2018 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault. Here’s a look back at the scandal.